Blue Dragon may start off slow but it eventually rises above and beyond what most people expect from it.
First off, the story of the game is decent. It's your classic kids taking on the villain who is trying to take over the world. Most if not all RPG's follow this straight forward storyline and Blue Dragon is no different. The story is a bit slow and some storylines just feel unnecessary and out of place. Fortunately, each Disk ends with some great cutscenes that keeps the story going. One thing that really took me by surprise were the cutscenes. At the end of the first disk there are just some great scenes that just made me like the game even more. The story takes awhile to build to its conclusion but it ends with some nice twists and turns that'll keep you satisfied until the endless credits.
The sound in the game was just what you would expect from a Japanese RPG. The voice acting were annoying but not bad enough that it took away from the game. The developers could have improved in the aspect but they were far better than the voice acting in Enchanted Arms. The orchestrated music, one of my favourite things in games, felt very familiar. The main theme in the startup menu felt like it was from some Final Fantasy game (and yes I know the composer is the same) and some of the areas in the game have some great music. The boss battle music grows on you - heavy metal for the win.
The graphics in the game were solid. The cutscenes looked great but obviously they were not done with in game graphics. The characters looked and sounded like they were from a Japanese anime cartoon and that's exactly the point the developers were trying to show.
Now again I'll bring up the demo. The demo made the gameplay feel awful and unnatural but its not the case. Thankfully, there are no random encounters. Random encounters are horrible and Blue Dragon would not have been the game it was if it had random encounters. Basically, you walk around and attack monsters in sight. Press X to jump at them and hit first or creep around and attack from the back. Pretty simple stuff. My only problem is when your walking around the camera won't let you see where your going and this was one of those nitpicking things I had with the game. You have shadow classes that'll enhance your character. Black Magic obviously lets you use abilitys like Winda, Grounda, etc. White Magic gives you all the healing abilities. The Thief class lets you negotiate and steal. All these classes all contribute to these characters and all are necessary. To beat the two hardest enemies in the game - Gold Mecha Robot and King Poo - you are going to need to level up your characters in all of these classes.
Overall, Blue Dragon is a solid RPG for a company that basically ignored the JPRG genre last generation. Blue Dragon may not be perfect but it lasts a solid 40 hours and the game will take you 90 hours if you want to get the annoying and reptitive achievements of leveling up everyone and all their shadow classes to lvl 99. The game is a solid buy for JRPG fans and a great one for those who may be new to the RPG genre.